'Anonymous' Hits Yemeni, Egyptian Government Sites

By Brian Prince |
Posted 2011-02-04

Hacktivists in the loosely affiliated group "Anonymous" painted a
bull's eye this week on Websites belonging to the governments of
Yemen and Egypt.

Members of the group launched DDoS (distributed denial of service)
attacks against a number of sites, including the Egyptian Ministry of
Communications and Information Technology and the
country's Ministry of Interior.

The attacks are believed to have been carried out in support of protests against the Egyptian government. According to The New York Times,
Gregg Housh, a member of Anonymous, said the group organized about 500
supporters in online forums to bring down the sites for Egypt's
Ministry of Information and Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak's National Democratic Party. Housh
personally disavowed any illegal activity.

Following the cyber-attacks on Egypt, the Website of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, presidentsaleh.gov.ye, was knocked offline Feb. 3 following calls by Anonymous members for attacks on the site.

The attacks marked another in a long list of Websites taken down by
the group. In December, Anonymous was credited with DDoS attacks
against several businesses and organizations in retaliation for the
crackdown on WikiLeaks. Last month, police in the U.K. arrested a mix of teenagers and adults for taking part in the attacks.

On Jan. 27 - the same day as the U.K. arrests - the FBI executed 40
search warrants tied to the investigation of the December attacks.